This supplement to the VSD-Journal (2001) contains the full papers to lectures on vehicle system dynamics given at the world congress of IUTAM in Chicago in 2000. It thereby represents the advances in rail and automobile dynamics research.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 2000 International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. The book captures a snapshot view of the state of the art in the field of mechanics and will be invaluable to engineers and scientists from a variety of disciplines.

This book presents extensive information related to the history of IUTAM. The initial chapters focus on IUTAM’s history and selected organizational aspects. Subsequent chapters provide extensive data and statistics, while the closing section showcases photos from all periods of the Union’s history. The history of IUTAM, the International Union on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, began at a conference in 1922 in Innsbruck, Austria, where von Kármán put forward the idea of an international congress including the whole domain of applied mechanics. In 1946 IUTAM was then formally launched in Paris/France. IUTAM has since time organized more than 24 world congresses and 380 symposia, representing all fields of mechanics and highlighting advances by prominent international researchers. The efforts of IUTAM and its about 50 member countries serve to promote the mechanical sciences and the advancement of human society, addressing many key challenges. In this context, IUTAM preserves important traditions while at the same time recognizing new challenges and adapting its structures and processes accordingly. The first edition of this book was published in 1988. This new book now offers an updated and completely revised edition reflecting the substantial developments in the interim.

Over the last decade and particularly in recent years, the macroscopic porous media theory has made decisive progress concerning the fundamentals of the theory and the development of mathematical models in various fields of engineering and biomechanics. This progress has attracted some attention, and therefore conferences devoted almost exclusively to the macrosopic porous media theory have been organized in order to collect all findings, to present new results, and to discuss new trends. Many important contributions have also been published in national and international journals, which have brought the porous media theory, in some parts, to a close. Therefore, the time seems to be ripe to review the state of the art and to show new trends in the continuum mechanical treatment of saturated and unsaturated capillary and non-capillary porous solids. This book addresses postgraduate students and scientists working in engineering, physics, and mathematics. It provides an outline of modern theory of porous media and shows some trends in theory and in applications.

Plasticity and impact dynamics are two important areas in engineering practice, which includes structural engineering, crashworthiness, metal formation and new structural materials. The application of engineering plasticity and impact dynamics has resulted in significant achievements both technically and economically.This book presents the state-of-the-art developments in the above fields. It contains over 15 chapters written by experts in engineering plasticity and impact dynamics. It covers a wide range of theoretical developments and engineering applications, including fundamentals of energy absorption, applications of new materials, crashworthiness, bifurcation in plasticity, microdynamics, penetration, wave propagation, fracture, laser impact and particle-impact-induced erosion.